Harenberg: Vampire icon

It is highly unlikely that Johann Christoph Harenberg imagined that, 280 years after he originally wrote it, the title page of one his books would be sold as a poster in Italy. That, however, is what happened at the Dracula e il mito dei vampiri exhibition in Milan, and the book was, of course, Harenberg's Vernünftige und Christliche Gedancken über die Vampirs oder Bluhtsaugende Todten, published in Wolffenbüttel in 1733.

Source: Europeana

Harenberg was born on April 28 1696 in the village Langenholzen close to Alfeld in present day Lower Saxony. His parents were farmers and traders of cloth. Having given birth to four daughters, his mother prayed to God that, if God would grant her a son, she would devote him to the service of God. Besides, the young Johann Christoph was a delicate child, so he was allowed to devote his energy on learning to read, write and calculate in German as well as in Latin. At eight years of age he was sent to school in Alfeld, and at thirteen he went to Hildesheim to continue his education in various subjects and languages.

As he was walking from Alfeld to Langenholzen one Saturday in the Spring of 1708, he saw a well-dressed, old man nearby whom he recognized as a man he knew. Harenberg approached him, but he suddenly noticed that the man was transparent, and the closer he got to the man, the more transparent he became. Terrified, Harenberg retreated to his village, where he next day learned that the old man had died from consumption at about the time that he had seen the vision. This was only Harenberg's first of three encounters with apparitions in connection with the death of locals.

In 1715, at the age of nineteen he went to the University in Helmstedt to study the sciences as well as further languages. In 1719 he visited the universities in Jena and Halle, and the following year he was asked by the abbess and duchess of Gandersheim, Elisabeth Ernestine Antonie von Sachsen-Meiningen, to become headmaster of school belonging to the diocese. Besides teaching, he researched not only the Holy Writ, but also the history of the diocese. Several of his theological articles were published in the so-called Bremische Sammlungen published by Theodor Hase.

Merian's view of Gandersheim from Wikimedia

1734 was marked by ups and downs for Harenberg. He finished his voluminous history of the Gandersheim diocese, but fell into disgrace with the abbess and, although he accepted to become a parson at Bornhausen, he was finally appointed chief caretaker of the schools in the duchy of Wolfenbüttel. While there, he was in 1738 appointed a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Incidentally, in 1732 this academy had been asked to write a memorandum on the Serbian vampires.

In 1745 Harenberg became Honorary Professor at the newly established Carolina collegium in Braunschweig and dean of the St. Lorenz convent in Schöningen. He died in Braunschweig on November 12 1774.

Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen November 26 1774, p. 1224
(He must have been 78 years of age, not 74).

Harenberg's multiple writings were mostly concerned with historical and theological topics, and particularly include a two volume book on the history of the Jesuit Order published in 1760. He was, however, also interested in other matters, like the fossil encrinus that was relatively common in Lower Saxony and also became the subject of one his shorter writings. In fact, at his death he left behind a large collection of these fossils, cf. Journal für die Liebhaber des Steinreichs und Konchyliologie Vol. II, pp. 524-7 (Weimar, 1775).

It was while he was Headmaster in Gandersheim that he wrote his book on vampires on the request of a high-ranking individual, no doubt the abbess herself. It must have been aimed at a wider audience, as it was not written in Latin like most of his other writings at the time, but in German. Postponing the publication in the hope that more examples would be published, he finished it on September 24 1732, and was consequently able to comment on a number of books on the subject that were published in the first half of that year. He also drew on his own experiences, including the above mentioned vision from his youth.

In Harenberg's view, the Serbs who claimed to be victims of vampires, probably suffered from angina (pectoris) that was caused by a) eating contaminated animal flesh, b) visiting other ill persons, and c) coming into contact with contaminated corpses. The illness then caused the blood to thicken, and as the blood began to stand still in the small vessels in the head, depression set in and the imagination malfunctioned. As the beliefs in harmful revenants were so impressed upon their imagination, the ill and their relations explained the illness, the chest pains and suffocation in terms of such vampires.

Ranft on Harenberg

Harenberg not only commented on a variety of theories that had been proposed since the publication of the Visum et Repertum, but also on subjects like werewolves. His etymology of the word 'vampire' was ridiculed by Michael Ranft in the third edition of his dissertation on the mastication of the dead. Ranft in fact ridiculed Harenberg and his efforts in general, leading to some controversy, when a review of both Harenberg's and Ranft's books were published in the supplements to the Leipzig Nova acta eruditorum, an anonymous review that was actually written by Harenberg himself. Obviously, Ranft felt obliged to vindicate himself, as years later, in 1742, he published a comment on the whole episode.

An in-depth study of Harenberg's book can be found in Anja Lauper's paper published in Begemann, Herrmann and Neumeyer's Dracula unbound: Kulturwissenschaftliche Lektüren des Vampirs (2008) and her subsequent book Die "phantastische Seuche": Episoden des Vampirismus im 18. Jahrhundert (2011).

Although it is, of course, his book and its subject that could be considered a 'vampire icon', one might still imagine a film inspired by Harenberg: His visions of the recently deceased and his considerations on the vampires could be intertwined and combined with machinations at the various courts and universities, perhaps even including some creative use of the controversy with Ranft, so that Hollywood could come up with stories of his own feverish experiences with bloodsuckers...

Geschichte Jetztlebender Gelehrten Vol. V (Zelle, 1732), pp. 94-144

On the pleasure derived from objects of terror...

Viktoriapark in Berlin with neogothic memorial on Kreuzberg in the background

The medieval period and its remains were romanticised by the authors of the Gothic novel with Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto (1764), being so obsessed with Gothic architecture that he constructed his own 'castle', Strawberry Hill. The enthusiasm for medieval architecture, ruins and other remnants of the past was  taken up by German painters in the early nineteenth century as documented in a current exhibition at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin: Romantik & Mittelalter: Architektur und Natur in der Malerei nach Schinkel (Romanticism and the Middle Ages: Architecture and Nature in Paintings after Schinkel, Schinkel being the Prussian architect and painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel). This interest in buildings from the past clearly mixed realism with fantasy as both exponents of romanticism and nationalism. So some of the themes of these paintings look familiar to readers of  gothic fiction or even viewers of the more 'gothic' parts of horror and fantasy cinema. And entering the permanent parts of the Alte Nationalgalerie, one can trace the evolution of some of the themes to the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich.

Schinkel: Gotische Klosterruine und Baumgruppen (1809)

But what starts out as fascinating soon becomes too much, even for a visitor like me who is far from unaccustomed to gothic horror and medieval romance. The German poet Heinrich Heine is quoted for writing about how the German public became tired of knights and other medieval trappings: 'die ewige Rittertümelei missbehagte am Ende den bürgerlich Gebildeten im deutschen Publikum, [...] dieser beständige Singsang von Harnischen, Turniergenossen, Burgfrauen, ehrsamen Zanftmeistern, Zwergen, Knappen, Schlosskapellen, Minne und Glaube, und wie der mittelalterliche Trödel sonst heißt, wurde uns endlich lästig.'

There are, however, still today people who nourish an enthusiasm for a romanticised medievalism. At the main railway station in Berlin I recently noticed a number of issues of a German magazine called Miroque Lebendige Geschichte, a popular magazine that deals with e.g. everyday life in the middle ages and carries ads for medieval style paraphernalia like clothes and tournament tents! I purchased Edition nr. 5 - III/2012 subtitled Kabinett des Grauens vom Mittelalter zur Moderne, i.e. a cabinet of horrors from the middle ages to our modern day.

A free CD is included containing 13 pieces of 'Horror-Musik' for Halloween, and on page 2 there is an ad for a Jack the Ripper bag in leather, so readers are probably of the kind who also would enjoy a spine-tingling Gothic novel. The Cabinet of Horrors itself features witches, demons, dragons, zombies, werewolves, and even zombies. The six page article on the living dead, i.e. vampires, is written by Dr. Utz Anhalt and is simply a mix of fact and fiction about vampires. A very short interview with Mark Benecke concerns scientific explanations of cases of the masticating dead and vampires. The magazine also deals with horror films set in the past (or perhaps rather a fictional version of the past), 'dark' novels, and Jack the Ripper. Obviously, all this is more about making the reader shudder with a mix of horror and delight than about history.

The Schauerroman, the German equivalent or perhaps original form of the Gothic novel, is the subject of a recent anthology published first in German as Populäre Erscheinungen: Der deutsche Schauerroman um 1800 and subsequently in English as Popular Revenants: The German Gothic and Its International Reception, 1800-2000, edited by Andrew Cusack and Barry Murnane. Apparently, British literary critics in the 1790's attributed the roots of the Gothic novel to German Ritter-, Räuber- und Schauerromantik: 'Indeed, the labels "German" and "gothic" were competing terms for a species of popular fictions in the 1790s as evidenced by the frequent use of such designations as "A German Tale." For readers these labels indicated the thrillingly foreign; for organs of the conservative government such as the Anti-Jacobin they represented an indecent and politically suspect class of fictions that were dangerously popular.' (Cusack's introduction, p. 2) Although the Schauerroman had its heyday in the early 19th century, some of the essays in the book explore their profound influence and development on both literature and film.

Similarly, an exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, currently explores the darker aspects of romantic art from Goya to Max Ernst and their influences on opera, cinema and other art forms: Schwarze Romantik, Dark romanticism, a term inspired by Mario Praz's seminal study The Romantic Agony. It is the first German exhibition focusing on this aspect of Romanticism and its legacy, comprises more than 200 paintings, sculptures, graphic works, photographs and films, also including works by Johann Heinrich Fuseli, William Blake and Caspar David Friedrich. According to the museum's web site, the exhibition

'is conceived to stimulate interest in the sombre aspects of Romanticism and to expand understanding of this movement. Many of the artistic developments and positions presented here emerge from a shattered trust in enlightened and progressive thought, which took hold soon after the French Revolution – initially celebrated as the dawn of a new age – at the end of the 18th century. Bloodstained terror and war brought suffering and eventually caused the social order in large parts of Europe to break down. The disillusionment was as great as the original enthusiasm when the dark aspects of the Enlightenment were revealed in all their harshness. Young literary figures and artists turned to the reverse side of Reason. The horrific, the miraculous and the grotesque challenged the supremacy of the beautiful and the immaculate. The appeal of legends and fairy tales and the fascination with the Middle Ages competed with the ideal of Antiquity. The local countryside became increasingly attractive and was a favoured subject for artists. The bright light of day encountered the fog and mysterious darkness of the night.'

The exhibition travels to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris in March. A voluminous catalogue is available in both German and English from Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Vampires in Berlin

Arriving at Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station, in Berlin, one in instantly met by vampires in the form of huge adverts for the Tanz der Vampire musical, currently performed at Theater des Westens. The photos were taken earlier today after some days of vacation in that city. Unfortunately, I did not find time to go to see the musical. However, I must admit that I am a bit wary of that kind of thing, although I enjoyed Polanski's film.

Count Orlock and his contemporaries

I have previously praised the brilliant German magazine Der Spiegel Geschichte. The current issue (no 5, 2012) concerns the history of Berlin, and the topic of one article is the avantgarde and decadent culture of post-WWI Berlin. Friedrich Murnau's Nosferatu is mentioned as an example of the new medium of cinema, a film that in gesture and make-up takes atmospheric expressionism as far as can be endured. The article sets the silent masterpieces of German cinema into the cultural context of artists like Brecht, Dix and Kafka. Clips from Nosferatu and other films from the era can be seen in this video from Der Spiegel.

Otto Dix: Großstadt (1928)